Photo: Robert Mapplethorpe. Vibert, 1984.
“With photography, you zero in; you put a lot of energy into short moments, and then you go on to the next thing,” American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe observed, revealing the deeply satisfying nature of the work. Once the shot is set up, it takes a fragment of a second to capture the scene. Preserved for posterity the past remains present for as long as it should so exist. It is, in many ways, the triumph of instant gratification.
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And yet, for a photograph to last beyond the joy of the moment it must transcend time, and it is here that the eye of the artist is made manifest. As Mapplethorpe revealed, “When I work, and in my art, I hold hands with God.” His determination to produce a body of work that live forevermore lead Mapplethorpe to adopt a practice that was profound in prolific in equal parts. He observed, “I’m looking for the unexpected. I’m looking for things I’ve never seen before,” and what remains is a rich and vibrant tapestry of life in his provocative and curious world.
Robert Mapplethorpe. Female Torso, 1978.
Robert Mapplethorpe: Dark and Light, a new exhibition on view at Moran Bondaroff, Los Angeles, now through June 25, 2016, presents a selection of approximately 40 gelatin prints, ranging from portraiture and nudes to still life, providing an intimate perspective on the artist’s work. Curated by Vince Aletti, the exhibition complements the retrospectives currently on view at LACMA and the Getty Museum, while speaking to Aletti’s elegant and eloquent sensibility itself.
Aletti reveals, “Invited to organize an exhibition from the holdings of the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, I jumped at the opportunity to see photographs I’d never seen before and to build a show around them. By far the largest group of unfamiliar images was of black men–a subject Mapplethorpe made his prime focus early on and returned to throughout his career–and those pictures constitute the bulk of the show.”
Robert Mapplethorpe. Anthurium, 1988.
The focus on the male form is the center of the show, the incredibly powerful yang energy that Mapplethorpe so brilliantly evokes. Aletti explains, “One of the great photographers of the male body, Mapplethorpe understood and appreciated it from all angles, in images whose approach ranged from classical restraint to sensual abandon. Because some of his most arresting pictures of men are portraits, the show is also full of beautiful, imposing heads, both sculptural and fiercely alive.”
The balance between stone and flesh, between the animate and inanimate, manifests throughout the exhibition, revealing the way in which the photograph exalts and preserves beauty, no matter its form. Aletti reveals, “Given my taste and his, the selection is predominately male, but not exclusively, and it’s the other pictures that help define Mapplethorpe’s hungry and brilliantly idiosyncratic eye: a vase of flowering branches in the dappled sun, Fran Lebowitz with a half-finished cigarette, a fish on a bed of newsprint, a magnificently pregnant belly.”
It is just this intricate balance of exquisite intimacy that makes Robert Mapplethorpe: Dark and Light a must-see for those who would love the opportunity to see the lesser known works of one of the finest masters of the medium.
All photos: © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used by permission.
Miss Rosen is a New York-based writer, curator, and brand strategist. There is nothing she adores so much as photography and books. A small part of her wishes she had a proper library, like in the game of Clue. Then she could blaze and write soliloquies to her in and out of print loves.
